


Say No To This

by OurUnsungHeroes42344



Category: Eureka (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Based on a Hamilton song, Based on a song, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Matrix!Eureka, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Season/Series 05, Song: Say No To This (Hamilton), Weekly Updates, Whump, not explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27387277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OurUnsungHeroes42344/pseuds/OurUnsungHeroes42344
Summary: Slight AU of how things between Jo, Zane, and Carter could have gone in Matrix!Eureka.Based on ‘Say No To This’ from Hamilton.Beta'd by the lovely Sarabahama - practically co-written in places.COMPLETED AS OF 12/15
Relationships: Jack Carter/Jo Lupo, Zane Donovan/Jo Lupo
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

Zane’s feet pound the wooded trail as he solves another polynomial in his head, the familiar beat of _‘Dancing in the Dark’_ doing little to distract his mind. He glances at his watch: _02:00_ \-- he wonders if he'll ever shake off the military time ingrained into him during the Astraeus training -- he’s barely slept in the weeks since he and the Astraeus crew had woken up five years into the future to radically different lives. 

He shakes his head and growls furiously, pushing himself into an even faster run, practically sprinting now. _‘Don’t go there, Donovan.’_

It’s too late, he’d started down the path in his brain he’d been trying to avoid. He screams a string of curses into the wind as he exhales. Jo Lupo. The love of his life is asleep somewhere with Sheriff Carter, of all people.

Blinded by rage at his situation and inability to do anything about it, he isn’t paying enough attention to the path and his foot catches on a root. He crashes heavily into the ground, barely having enough time to catch the brunt of the fall with his hands and arms rather than his face.

Groaning softly, but inwardly welcoming the brief burst of pain, he rolls onto his back and forces himself into a sitting position, assessing his injuries. Nothing broken, just minor scrapes to his hands, arms, nose, and knees. He gets to his feet and locates his Ipod, thankfully not broken, which had also gone flying when he fell.

He jams the earbuds back in and jogs slowly, and much more carefully home.

He finds Josephina Lupo waiting on his doorstep. _‘Oh, wonderful.’_

Zane stops just short of the light cast from his doorstep. “Lupo. Or is it Carter now?”

Jo doesn’t give a response to the verbal jab. “Hi, Zane.”

“What do you want? It’s after 2 in the morning.”

“I-I didn’t know where else to go.” Jo doesn’t sound like herself, timid and afraid almost.

Zane steps back, further into the darkness as Jo takes a step towards him. “Can I come in?”

“I have no interest in listening to the qualms of shacking up with the town smokey and Allison Blake’s children.”

Jo recoils from his words, taking half a pace back towards his door, hurt flashing briefly on her face. 

Zane stifles a grunt of displeasure with himself for being so harsh and rakes a hand through his unruly hair, only mildly surprised to find a stick leftover from his earlier tumble. He examines it for a moment before tossing it aside. “Fine.”

Zane steps forwards into the light, towards his door, forgetting how beat up he must look. Jo gasps slightly. “What happened?”

“Gravity.” Zane awkwardly slides past Jo and unlocks the door, shoving it open and holding it that way with a hand above her head, gesturing for her to enter before him. Pissed and hurting or not, his Mom raised a gentleman.

Jo ducks under his arm and stands awkwardly in his dining area. Zane closes the door, flicks on the light and waves his arm haphazardly towards the living room. “I’ll be right back.”

He trudges up the stairs, and collects his first aid supplies from the bathroom before joining Jo, as far away as possible, on the couch.

He gingerly rolls up his dirty, torn sweatpants, wincing when he scrapes his injured knees. He pours some rubbing alcohol onto a cotton ball and dabs lightly at the injuries, hissing through clenched teeth as it burns, it's a little less painful than the weight in his chest as he watches her out of the corner of his eye.

Her lips are parted, her eyes fixed on his wounds, a delicate furrow of concern knitted between her brows. The look is so familiar, it aches.

Once his knees are thoroughly clean, he inspects them and applies a thin layer of antibacterial gel and lightly tapes a piece of gauze over the abrasions, onto each of his knees, not wanting the antibacterial gel to rub off, nor debris get in the wounds.

He carefully rolls his sweatpants back down and repeats the process with his elbows and forearms. He pauses, looking at the cuts on his hands and frowns, brow furrowed.

Jo, who has remained silent and watching from her side of the couch, slides closer to him and gently takes the bottle of rubbing alcohol and bag of cotton balls from him. “May I?”

Zane grunts his permission, unable to figure out how to manage himself without looking like a stubborn fool.

Jo carefully cleans out the cuts and scrapes on his hands before gently applying the layer of antibacterial gel and the gauze.

She then turns her attention to his face and dabs gently at his stinging nose and a scrape on his cheek he hadn’t noticed before.

She’s inches away from him, close enough for his pained gasps of breath to stir the loose strands of hair framing her face into motion. He finds himself instinctively reaching up to cup her cheek in his hand. They both freeze, staring into each other’s eyes, breaths caught in their throats.

Zane breaks out of the spell first and drops his hand, nodding his thanks for her help he quickly gathers up his supplies, shaking his head in refusal of gauze on his cheek or nose.

He hurries to return the first aid supplies upstairs, tears burning in the back of his throat, _‘from the alcohol,’_ he tells himself.

Zane grips the edge of his sink and wishes he could splash himself with some water without rinsing off the antibacterial gel on both his hands and face.

Straightening, he puts on a practiced mask of uncaringness and returns to the couch. Jo has returned to the far end and seems deep in thought, only looking up when he sits down. “Why are you here, Lupo?”

“I-I didn’t know where else to go…”

“You said that already. It’s almost 4am, get to the point please.”

Hurt flashes in Jo’s eyes and her voice drops to a low whisper. “It’s Jack. I think he’s…I think he wants to be with Allison again.” Zane stifles a noise of shock and rush of anger at the Sheriff. “H-He asked me to stay someplace else for a few days, let Allison stay at the house.”

Zane shrugs in an effort to appear nonchalant. “He may just be trying to give her some time with her kids. Help her adjust. No reason to go overreacting.”

She shrugs, clearly still upset and unconvinced. “Maybe.”

Zane sighs heavily, he can’t help but feel sorry for her. “Do you have a place to stay?”

She looks at him, eyes shining with unshed tears that only serve to make Zane feel more like an ass. “Yes, GD temporary employee housing, about a block up the way from here.” 

He wants to bang his head against a wall, but instead gets to his feet and offers her a hand. “Let me walk you home.”

Jo looks startled at his sudden change in attitude towards her and accepts his hand.

Zane opens the door for her and walks by her side, letting her lead the way. “You didn’t have to walk me home, you know?”

He shrugs and flashes a cocky half-grin. “My Mom raised a gentleman.”

Jo stops in front of a small house with the GD logo on the mailbox. “This one’s mine.”

“Well, I should head back home. Have a goodnight.”

He turns to leave, but Jo catches him by the upper arm, avoiding his injuries, her face beet red. She slides her hand down until it rests in his and gently tugs him towards her. He allows her to lead him inside the house, not entirely in control of his actions.

Jo leads him into the bedroom and sits on the edge of the bed, spreading her legs open ever so slightly, biting her lower lip, skin flushed. “Stay?”

Zane’s breath catches in his throat and he feels his blood run south, making him dizzy. _‘This isn’t right. She’s with Carter now.’_

Memories flash, hot and bright, across his mind’s eye: the smell of her skin and of their love, the pull of her muscles beneath his body, the sounds she makes and can draw from him, her intoxicating taste.

She shifts slightly on the bed, looking up at him with pleading eyes, her hair falling in loose curls around her shoulders, her loosely buttoned shirt slipping slightly to the side. 

“Oh, God.” He can’t help the gasped exclamation. She looks so helpless. Her body seemingly screaming with need for...him.

Zane groans deep in his throat, his mouth dry. “N-no. J-Jo, th-this isn’t right.”

He staggers back until his back hits the door frame, he should go, but it’s as if he’s frozen in place.

Jo slides off of the bed and saunters towards him, she plants the nails of one hand on his chest and leans up, breathing into his ear. “I know you want me.”

Zane bangs his head back against the wall, breaths coming in ragged gasps. Jo drags the hand on his chest to the back of his neck and pulls him down to her lips for a scorching kiss, guiding him back towards the bed. 

Her legs hit the bed and she falls back onto it, taking him with her. Zane groans with want, he’s missed her so much. He can’t say no.


	2. Chapter 2

A month or so later, Jo is still living in the temporary housing.

Zane waffles between being outraged at how much of an asshat Carter is being, and being selfishly thankful that he is. 

Zane has returned to Jo's house several times since that first night, but more often than not he would open his door, or arrive home, to find her waiting for him, like she had the first night. 

Every time, he wordlessly invites her in, and as soon as the door to the outside world is closed, they crash into each other in a fiery passion he is afraid will consume him.

Each and every time he wakes up alone, hating himself, guilt breaking over him like a wave and he swears that that was the last time. That next time he will say no to her. 

It's always pointless in the end: all his determination and resolve sliding away the minute he sees her waiting for him, eyes burning with hope and need --need for him. Jo Lupo is his kryptonite and he's helpless to say no to her.

* * *

The neighborhood is already steeped in deepening darkness as Zane pulls his motorcycle into his assigned spot and kills the motor. He leans back and stretches out his back with a long sigh. It had been a hell of a day. At least they had two new prototypes ready for review and final testing.

Giving the motorcycle an affectionate pat, he drops the keys in his helmet, swinging it unconsciously as he trudges around the building to his front door. 

Zane manages to get his door open and inside without dropping his keys...again, and flops heavily onto the couch. _'I'll just rest my eyes for a few minutes.'_

He closes his eyes, and is minutes away from dreamland, when a loud crash yanks him back to the world of the living. _'What the hell was that?'_

Zane springs to his feet, adrenaline coursing through his veins and chasing away his weariness. He surveys his apartment, searching for what had cost him his nap. Eyes landing on the now broken window directly across from him, he notes a rock the size of his fist that hadn't been sitting on his table when he'd arrived home only minutes earlier.

Pausing to grab a flashlight off the table, Zane hurries to his front door, throwing it open and bursting out into the night. Shining the beam of light, he growls into the blackness, "Who's there? Show yourself!"

The cool night breeze and cricket noises are the only response he gets, and after scanning the area with his light, Zane gives up and returns to his apartment.

Carefully locking the door, he retrieves a flattened cereal box and a roll of duct tape, and secures it over the hole in his window, before turning his attention to the rock on his table. 

He puts on a pair of gloves and picks it up carefully, snorting in amusement as he discovers a piece of paper taped to its underside. _'What am I? In a friggin detective movie?'_ He pulls the note off and unfolds it. Big, black words glare angrily up at him from the paper, eleven in total: **I know about Jo. Meet me in the woods. 6pm. Tomorrow.** A crude, hand-drawn map is scrawled below the message.

Zane drops the rock, and sits heavily in the nearest chair, no longer trusting his legs to hold him. Hands shaking, he rereads the note. Once. Twice. Willing the words to change, but they don't. The note slips from his fingers and drifts lazily to the ground. Zane’s head thunks heavily to the table. _'Frack.'_


	3. Chapter 3

Zane finds it next to impossible to concentrate the next day. He’s walking out, deep in the backwoods, checking the readings with Dr. Wachowski: Section Five had conducted their Strong Force Disruption test, and sent teams out to monitor readings. He checks his handheld again, relieved to find the readings are minimal. This being Eureka, he wouldn’t have been surprised if they created a tear in the space-time continuum.

He breathes in the damp evergreen must, trying to banish the distraction, but the words of the letter flash unbidden before his eyes, as if permanently seared into his brain. The map is for a spot near where he’s currently standing, and he keeps looking for clues, but the woods keep their secrets.

Wachowski is trailing a few yards behind him, nose buried in his tablet, not that Zane is complaining: the fact that Wachowski isn’t the chatty type suits him fine, leaving him to his musings. He'd decided against telling Jo about the letter until after tonight. He isn't entirely sure why, but the voice in the back of his mind screams at him, every time, that something isn't right with Jo. But the voice, along with most other rational thoughts, are overpowered within minutes of being in her intoxicating presence.

Zane sighs, trying to focus on his work. The woods are thick with mist and birdsong, and he watches a blackbird flutter from branch to branch, diving suddenly across his path, and into the boulder beside the trail. It flaps in place, half of its body buried in the rock, as Zane stares, lips parted in surprise. He approaches cautiously, crouching to get a better look. The bird doesn’t seem distressed, in fact, its dead-eye stare and almost mechanical wing movements remind him of a VR game more than a living creature. The bird glitches momentarily --and glitch is the best word he can use to label it-- derezzing before popping back into focus. 

Zane looks back over his shoulder, calling to Dr. Wachowski, but when he turns back, the bird has disappeared.

_Ding!_

Tearing his attention away from the rock, Zane glances at his PDA: 

1 new unread message from Josephina: _Having trouble focusing?_

He groans inwardly. _'How does she always know?'_ These days it seems like Jo is practically inside his head, even more so than before the disastrous Astraeus mission. 

Zane debates for a moment before typing his reply: _Maybe. Maybe not. You?_

_Ding!_

Jo's response is almost immediate: _How about you come find out for yourself? My office._

Shock pulses through Zane as he stares at the text. She'd been wanting to take "lunch breaks" more and more often, but never at GD. Adrenaline begins to drip into his veins along with arousal, the added risk of Jo's proposal turning him on easily.

Zane’s fingers are shaking slightly as he types his response: _Maybe I will…_

Pocketing his PDA he confers with Wachowski, telling him there's a pressing matter GD that requires his immediate attention _\--not really a lie, now, is it?_ Quickly transferring his data to the tablet, he practically sprints back to where he parked his bike, pulls on his helmet, and speeds off toward GD --toward _her_. He barely slows down as he maneuvers through town, leaning into the turns, heart pounding louder with each elapsed mile, sure that every person he passes can hear each painful beat. Abandoning his bike haphazardly in the parking spot nearest the elevator, he makes his way up to Jo's office, exhilarated from the ride and anticipation. 

Zane presses the buzzer beside Jo's door, and waits a moment, shaking slightly. When there's no answer, he keys in the code to enter. The door swishes open, revealing the dark office within. "You wanted to see me?"

No response. Zane shrugs, maybe he'd beat her up here. He slips inside.

As soon as the door slides shut, Jo’s lips crash into his and he thumps heavily against it.

He wraps his arms around her body, relishing in the feel of her in his hands as she kisses him hungrily, fingers twisting in his hair, pulling him closer.

Jo tugs at the back of his leather jacket and he shrugs it off leaving him in a black tee. She pulls him back further into her office, lips never leaving his, moaning his name like a prayer over and over. 

Zane bends his knees and lifts Jo into his arms, carrying her the rest of the way across the office and dropping her lightly on the black leather couch.

He stares down at her as he loosens his belt, wondering how it is that he has her in his arms again, how he keeps getting so lucky.

Then his PDA beeps, a reminder he’d set about his woodland meeting tonight, yanking him back to reality. **The note. I know about Jo. Meet me in the woods. 6pm. Tomorrow.** The angry dark letters flash in front of his eyes again and his fingers pause in their work on his belt.

Jo, her button-down thrown aside, senses the shift in his mood and gets on her knees on the couch, sitting up to lay her hands on his chest and press open mouthed kisses to his neck. “What’s wrong?”

Zane shakes his head as if to clear the note from his mind. “Nothing. Just a reminder for a meeting I have later. I’m not exactly looking forward to it.”

Jo wraps her hands behind his head and looks at him with a wicked grin. “Then how about I help you take your mind off of it?”

Zane hesitates, the wrongness of the situation they’ve been taking advantage of, how un-Jo-like she’s been acting, fighting with his desire for her. He opens his mouth to say maybe they shouldn’t but Jo silences him with a deep kiss. “Stay.”

Zane’s higher brain power shuts down along with his inhibitions and he gives into her wants, unable to say no to her.


	4. Chapter 4

A few hours later, Zane is leaning against his bike in the same small service lot he’d parked in earlier for the Strong Force test readings. He glances at his watch: _17:45_ \-- he’d shown up a bit early on purpose, not wanting to be caught off guard by whomever had put the rock through his window. 

He casts a glance around, staying alert for any signs or sounds of somebody approaching, shifting uneasily. He jams his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans in an attempt to control his nerves -and spare his nails- he has the bad habit of picking and biting at them when he’s thinking or nervous about something.

Zane tenses as the low rumble of an engine breaks the silence, headed his way from the access road. He relaxes as he recognizes Sheriff Carter’s jeep cresting the top of the steep slope, lifting a hand in greeting. Zane checks his watch again: _17:55_.

He’d called Carter on his way out here, after his rendezvous with Jo, and asked him to meet up here, under the pretense of checking out the rock the bird had gotten stuck in earlier. While his insides squirm a bit with guilt over the whole situation with Jo, Zane is relieved that Carter is here to back him up if it all goes to hell. 

Carter parks the jeep on the other side of Zane’s bike and steps out, glancing around the parking lot. “Hey, Zane.”

“Hey, Carter. Thanks for coming all the way up here to check this out with me.”

Carter shrugs nonchalantly. “Birds stuck in rocks, huh?” He chuckles, shaking his head, “Just another day in Eureka.” 

Zane smiles in spite of the situation.

Carter claps his hands together. “Shall we?”

Zane jerks his head towards the trail head and starts down it, Carter following right behind him. 

They walk in silence, following the winding trail deeper into the woods, Zane fighting the urge to break into a run or check his watch again, nervous energy making him jittery.

“This is it,” says Zane, pointing at the rock a few paces off the main trail. He walks over to it, ahead of Carter, and crouches down to examine it, sneaking a quick peek at his watch as he does so: _18:05_.

“Got a hot date?” Carter asks, at his shoulder. 

Zane realizes Carter is directly behind him, barely a step away. It's an invasion of his personal space that Carter hasn't done since the bad old days --before Founder's Day, and a different Carter. He feels the hairs on the back of this neck rise, muscles tensing slightly; he feels cornered, trapped. Trying to shake off the feeling, Zane examines the rock and attempts to sound casual as he replies, “What makes you think that?”

“You keep looking at your watch.”

Zane momentarily stiffens, but forces his shoulders to relax and shrugs. “Oh, yeah. I --uh--” he sighs and stands up. “I can’t find anything wrong with this rock.”

Carter reaches past him and knocks on it with his fist. “Nope. Seems pretty solid to me.”

Zane rakes a hand through his hair and stares, frustratedly at the rock. “I know what I saw, man. I just can’t explain it.”

“I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.”

Zane slides out from between the rock and Carter, glancing around for whomever he’s supposed to be meeting. “Hey, uh, can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Have you noticed anything weird about Jo lately? She...uh...told me a few weeks after we got back from Titan, the others and I, I mean, that she was living in the temporary GD housing...and I know it’s not my place, but something seems… off.”

“You’re right. I mean, she’s screwing you, after all.” Carter’s voice is hard and sharp as stone.

_Frack_.

* * *

Zane freezes in place, shock and realization flooding his system, his back turned to Carter. “It was you…”

As Zane turns slowly to face Carter, there’s a blinding pain in his jaw as his head snaps to the right, momentum driving him to the ground. Lights burst behind his eyelids and time stutters. When the haze clears, he stares up at Carter standing over him, right hand still balled into a fist, his face a mask of rage.

Zane scrambles backwards in the dirt as Carter advances on him. “You bastard. You’re not good enough for her, you never were. After all, what are you? Nothing but a selfish, maturity-challenged screw-up. A damn felon. What could she possibly see in you?”

Zane swallows hard, trying not to let his expression show Carter that he’d struck a nerve. How many times had he leveled the same accusations at himself?

He slowly holds his hands up, palms toward the irate Sheriff in what he hopes is a placating gesture, “Woah, hey! Carter...I know, okay? You have every right to be pissed, I get it. But there’s something else going on. Something isn’t right with her. I’m serious.”

Carter pauses in his advance, and Zane slowly lowers his hands, shifting his weight slightly, working discreetly to get his legs under him. Carter is seriously pissed, and he might need to put some distance between them, but first, he wants to make Carter understand. “I know what this is going to sound like, but honest, she came to me. I knew something was wrong, she wasn’t herself, but I-I.” 

Carter stares blankly at him, so he rushes on. “She’s different...ok. The Jo I know, she’s loyal to a fault. When she told me about the two of you, I accepted it. But then...she came to me, and --I’m not proud of it-- I didn’t tell her no. Since then ...she’s not acting like herself, Carter. Something is wrong, I just can’t...” He groans, rubbing the back of his neck, and the headache building there. Bits and pieces of thoughts swirl in his head, refusing to coalesce into one cohesive idea. “There’s gotta be a logical explanation.”

Carter doesn’t respond. At all. 

_‘What the--’_ Zane cautiously lifts a hand and waves it in front of Carter’s face. 

_Nothing._

Carefully, he gets to his feet and steps back, almost tripping over a large stick as he does so. His heart is thundering painfully in his chest, his brain trying to make sense out of what he’s seeing. 

Carter unfreezes, beginning to move, very slowly, his entire body shifting in and out of focus, pixelating and _glitching_. That’s the only word Zane can think of to describe it: like a computer glitch. The implications send an icy shiver down his spine.

Carter reaches, faster now, for his gun. “This is going to be a bit harder to explain,” he says, robotically.

Zane lunges forwards, scooping up the stick, swinging it as hard as he can into “Carter’s” chin, knocking him to the ground. Whatever the hell this thing is, it’s NOT Jack Carter. Zane drops the stick, and sprints, top speed, back down the trail. His lungs burn, the pace and adrenaline ratcheting up his respiration and heart rate to compensate.

“ZANE!” Carter’s bellow echoes through the trees, much too close for comfort.

Zane jams his helmet on and throws the bike into motion. 

He tears back down the mountain towards town as fast as he dares, driving mostly on autopilot and adrenaline, trying to process what the hell just happened. Zane shakes his head furiously, unable to wrap his swirling mind around the events of the past few hours. Taking a few calming breaths, he forces his confusion to the background, focusing instead on a polynomial, allowing the familiar steps to calm him and lead him to a solution. 

He looks up, astounded to find himself in front of Jo's house. He'd zoned out, trusting his instincts to navigate traffic on autopilot, and his damn instincts had brought him right to _her_. He parks the bike, takes his helmet off and then sprints the short distance to Jo's door, pounding on it, sure he won't get a response.

To his surprise Jo opens the door a few moments later, tying her robe around her, worry crinkling her brow. "Zane? What are you doing here?"

Pushing past her, Zane begins pacing the length of her living room, muttering to himself, "Where to start, what to say?"

"Zane!" Jo whistles loudly and waves in his face. 

He stops in his pacing, and grabs her waving hands. "Did you tell Carter about us?"

Jo's face pales. "What? No! Why?"

"Well, considering the fact he just told me he knows about us, and tried to kill me!" He resumes his pacing, trying to remain calm.

"He what? Are you ok?" Jo pulls him into a tight hug, rubbing small circles on his back.

Zane relaxes into her touch, feeling the adrenaline begin to fade. He buries his face in her neck, breathing deeply. "I'm fine, Jojo."

"Is he the one that put that rock through your window?"

Zane stiffens, his blood running cold. "I didn't say anything about a rock, Jo."

Jo's knee slams into his groin, and he collapses to the ground with a cry, blinding pain engulfing him. 

Waves of pain roll through him as he curls into a protective ball, teeth clenched together against another cry of pain. 

The click of a gun being cocked snaps Zane’s attention back to his surroundings as he stares down the barrel of the gun Jo points at his face. "Clever boy. Too clever."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact: This chapter was originally going to end at the line break at about 700 words, but it just felt too short


	5. Chapter 5

Zane licks his lips, his mouth desert-dry, the ache in his chest far more debilitating than the physical pain from Jo's knee. She stares over the barrel of her pistol, with the intense, cold expression of a stranger. 

Suddenly, the front door crashes open and Sheriff Carter bursts in, breathing heavily. “Jo! It’s Zane, have you-” he breaks off as he surveys the scene. “Oh.”

“About time you got here. How’d he even get away from you?”

“Technical difficulties.”

Jo hums in disapproval and turns her attention back to Zane. “What a shame to waste such intelligence and ingenuity, but you’ve seen too much. If only you hadn’t become so distracted, you could’ve been happy. Oh, well, time to say goodbye. Any last words?”

“Goodbye.” Carter growls, slamming the butt of his gun hard into the back of Jo’s head.

**BANG!**

The gunfire is deafening in the small space. Zane flinches away, heart racing. He takes stock, waiting for burning pain and oblivion. He's surprised to find he's unscathed.

Jo stumbles to her knees --dazed but still conscious-- her gun tumbling from her hand, and skittering across the floor past Zane.

Carter jams his pistol back in its holster, grabs Jo in an attempt to subdue her, and they crash to the ground.

Zane scrambles backwards away from them. He glances around, looking for the gun, while trying to keep tabs on both Jo and Carter. He spots it beneath the coffee table and inches toward it. 

He watches, out of the corner of his eye, as Jo twists, elbowing Carter in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. As Carter clutches his chest, trying to catch his breath, Jo pulls a wicked-looking combat knife from under her robe, baring her teeth in a feral grin. 

Carter’s eyes widen, “Where were you even hiding that?!”

Zane uses the moment they’re so focused on each other to lunge forward and retrieve Jo’s gun from under the table. 

**BANG!**

Jo and Carter freeze and turn to look at Zane, Jo’s gun pointed at the new hole in the ceiling.

Zane levels the gun at them. “Both of your hands where I can see them. Drop the knife, Jo. Carter, your gun too.”

Jo growls but slowly drops the knife, Carter does the same with his gun.

“Jo, slowly kick the gun and knife away from you and then sit down next to Carter.”

Jo does as she’s told, silent fury blazing in her eyes. “Zane, I-”

“Shut up!” Zane shouts, the gun shaking slightly in his hand, his brain in overdrive.

Zane scoops up the discarded weapons, placing the knife on the coffee table behind him and tucks Carter’s gun into his jeans. Muttering to himself, he begins pacing, raking his free hand through his hair, glancing at Jo and Carter. 

“Zane,” Jo’s voice is pleading and desperate. “Listen to me, ok? You’re sick. It’s making you see things.”

Zane pauses in his pacing and stares at her, the gun continuing to tremble in his hand. “What?”

Jo slowly starts to get up, her hands raised. “It’s ok, Zane. I can help you. Just put the gun down.”

Zane shakes his head as if trying to clear it. “None of this makes sense.”

“Shhh, I know. It’s all going to be ok, Zane. This is real. I’m real.” Jo steps carefully toward him, keeping her hands up, her voice quietly soothing. 

Zane watches, struggling with her words, with what he thinks --what he _knows_ he saw. There’s a furrow of worry creasing her brow, and he’s sucked into the depths of her warm eyes. Jo lowers her hands, closing her fingers gently around the gun in Zane’s shaking hand, stroking his wrist with the other. He feels his shoulders relax at her touch. A slight shift of her eyes is the too-late warning, as Jo twists his hand, sending him crashing to the ground. Jo looms over him, expression triumphant as she levels the gun at him.

With a yell, Carter tackles Jo sending them both flying over Zane and into the coffee table. They grapple, Carter pinning Jo, forcing her arms above her head, keeping the muzzle pointed away from them. Zane watches in shock as Jo twists, kneeing Carter in the abdomen, using the distraction to land a vicious punch to his face. Stunned, Carter falls back, and Jo shakes free of his grip, standing over him with a smug glare. “Carter, I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life.” 

From his place on the floor, Zane stares at her back, knowing from the set of her shoulders, the dead-level grip on the gun, that Jo is going to kill Carter, here and now. Sound fades to nothing but the thunder of his own heartbeat in his ears. 

Time slows to a crawl. 

Zane pulls Carter’s gun out of his jeans. 

Jo cocks her gun and points it at Carter. 

Zane closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided after much back and forth with my lovely beta to split this chapter in two instead of 1 big 1,691 word last chapter


	6. Chapter 6

Carter breaks the silence first. “You-you killed her.”

Zane doesn’t respond, the gun shaking at his side as he fights to remain calm. _‘This isn’t real. She wasn’t real. Jo is fine.’_ He repeats this to himself over and over, like a prayer.

Unbidden, an image of Jo in her white sundress flashes in his mind's eye. “She’s not dead. This isn’t real. This isn’t real.”

“Zane...” Carter’s wary voice breaks through the rising wave of panic.

Zane snaps his attention back to Carter, gun raising to point at his face. “You have five minutes to explain why you stopped her from killing me.”

“Uh..uh...None of this is real! But, I’m guessing you already figured that out…”

Zane cocks the gun. “Considering you pixelated right in front of me, yeah. Three minutes.”

“The me before was. This is --this is me. My body's actually in Henry's garage. He had to --to jack me to get at my MP3s.”

“NPC?”

“Right. Cuz we have to build a thing to uh blow up the ship and then there's gonna be a heat spike, and then Henry, he can uh trace it in the real world.”

“Yeah,” Zane lowers the gun. “No computer version of you could have come up with something that incoherent.”

“You were holding a gun in my face,” says Carter as he gets up, groaning. “It all feels very real.”

_‘Real. No. This isn't real. Jo wasn’t real. She’s not-’_ a wave of nausea rushes through Zane, and he drops the gun before sprinting to the toilet. He heaves up his breakfast and slumps next to the bowl, his body drained and shaking as the adrenaline fades from his system.

Carter pokes his head in, “Are you ok?”

Zane lifts his head. “I’m not sure.”

Carter offers him a hand and helps him to his feet. Zane staggers back out into the destroyed living room and slumps onto the couch. “Promise me you’re real. Promise me that this is some sort of total immersion simulation. Promise me that she...that I didn’t…”

Carter sits down besides Zane and puts his hand on the younger mans shaking shoulder. “I promise you, Zane. Jo is fine. And if you hadn’t, I’d be dead right now.”

Zane releases a long breath and kneads his eyes with the palms of his hands. “I know that. Logically, I do. I knew something was off with her...but…”

“I know, and I’m here for you. But, right now we kind of have to get moving before the other NPC’s notice Jo and I are AWOL.”

Zane shakes his head and closes his eyes. He takes a moment to focus on his breathing and sort through his spinning thoughts and emotions. “Alright, how do we blow up the Astreaus?”

* * *

As is typical in Eureka --real or simulated, it seems-- the best-laid plans courted disaster. Zane shakes his head: they’d managed to blow up the Astraeus, but almost been caught in the process, not to mention kicking off a cascade failure. They don’t have time to wait for help to arrive: ejecting someone from the program so they could revive the others from the outside is the only way. 

He doesn’t have a death wish, but they’re out of time, and if someone has to risk it, better him than any of the others. He tries not to think about the psychology of that thought --not his area of expertise. 

Allison hurries into the infirmary to gather what they would need, Fargo and Grace right behind her.

Zane reaches out and grabs Carter’s arm, “hey…I need to ask you a favor...just in case…”

“There’s no need to think like that.”

Zane frowns. “Carter. I’m serious.”

“Ok, I’m listening.”

“What happened in the Matrix, for the most part, will not stay in the Matrix. You know the rumor mill in Eureka...people talk.” 

Carter nods, a grim expression on his face, but thankfully he doesn’t interrupt. 

“I know things are going to be weird for a while,” that's an understatement, “with you and me...and Allison and Jo, but there’s a few things I’d like to keep between us.”

“Zane…”

He holds up a hand, letting out a deep breath. “Let me finish, Carter. What I d-did to Jo...and...other stuff.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, reluctant to say the last part out loud, as though confession makes it more _real_ somehow. “I-I don’t know how much you figured out, or know, but the two of you were together, in here.” He gestures at their surroundings, “but she and I were sleeping together.” The confession is as bitter on his tongue, as he had expected, despite the logical part of him reasoning that he had been manipulated.

Carter’s voice is soothing. “Zane…”

He doesn’t want to hear it, the reassurances, the platitudes...He rushes on, “I don’t know why she came to me...if it was a program glitch, or if the Consortium was pulling strings, or what. But I don’t care what a stupid simulation says. You and I both know Jo. She’s not a cheater.”

“So?” 

“Nobody needs to know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _That's when I began to pray  
>  Lord, show me how to say no to this  
> I don't know how to say no to this_
> 
> _But my God, she looks so helpless  
>  And her body's saying, "Hell, yes"_
> 
> _No, show me how to say no to this  
>  I don't know how to say no to this_
> 
> _In my mind, I'm tryin' to go (go, go, go)  
>  Then her mouth is on mine, and I don't say_
> 
> _No, no (say no to this)  
>  No, no (say no to this)  
> No, no (say no to this)  
> No, no (say no to this)_
> 
> Say No To This by Lin-Manuel Miranda


End file.
